The Princess and Her Pirate

by Lois Greiman

  “You think I’m going to kill you, Megs?” he asked.

  She shrugged. The motion reminded him suddenly of Gem. They were not unlike, those two. Which made him wonder about the scheme he had set Burr to. Would it work?

  “Is that your plan, my liege?” she asked.

  My liege. The words were naught but a mockery from her lips. He should have been insulted, he supposed. But her lips were exceptionally full and lusciously bright. “No,” he said, and pulled his attention from her mouth. “Not yet at least.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe it’s because I can learn something from you.”

  “From me? A common thief? Again, I am flattered.”

  She had a gift for conveying the opposite impression of her spoken words.

  “As well you should be.”

  “What is it you wish to know?”

  A half dozen questions jockeyed for position in his mind, but he squelched the most vociferous one. After all, it hardly mattered if she felt any desire for him. Did not matter if she felt as breathless as he when they touched.

  “Do you always escape while naked?” he asked, and realized that sometimes Hoary had more influence over his verbalization than he liked to admit. After all, he should be asking about her connection to Wheaton. But he’d tried that already, hadn’t he?

  “You ordered me to bathe,” she said. “I could hardly disobey my sovereign lord, for surely he knows what is best for a lowly—”

  “Save the sheep dung for the gardener, Megs,” he said. “And answer me straight.”

  “It was the time Peters would least expect my escape!” she spat.

  It made some sense. For while Peters might be obsessive about protecting his laird, he was less than comfortable around the fairer sex and might never have considered she would compromise herself to outwit him. Naïveté was a cruel master.

  “So you planned to seduce him?”

  Maybe there was something odd in his tone, because she narrowed her eyes at him, like a cat watching its prey. Wasn’t she supposed to be the prey?

  “So you would add whore to my list of sins?” she asked.

  It was a harsh word, but she was in a harsh situation, and surely if he were in her shoes, or barefoot as she happened to be, he would not be above a bit of seduction, but perhaps that truth didn’t need to be voiced.

  “How far did you go, Megs?”

  “In my plans for seduction?” It was her turn to pace. Her full lips were pursed, her eyes disdainful. “The truth is, MacTavish, I tire of your questions.” She said the words as if he were excused. He raised his brows.

  “I want to know exactly what happened.”

  “Then ask your lieutenant.”

  In fact, he already had, but the story was so pathetic, so simple, that it was near impossible to believe. She had taken a bath while Peters watched the door. Suddenly her humming had ceased and he heard a gasp and small splash. Thinking she was drowning, he’d rushed in to save her. At which time she trounced him on the head and disappeared with his pistol. The entire laughable tale put the freckle-faced lieutenant in a very poor light, so there seemed little reason for the man to lie.

  The girl was watching him closely. Then the corners of her mouth raised slightly. It was an intriguing sight. Like the dawning of a smile on a fairy face. “You already asked him, didn’t you?”

  Obviously, but Cairn would almost rather believe she had seduced the poor lad than that she had tricked him with such pitiable ease. Hell, the stiff-backed fool was lucky she hadn’t decided to drown him while she was at it.

  “He was merely following your orders, MacTavish,” she said. “You told him to make certain I bathed and to keep me safe.”

  Was she defending him? “I don’t remember telling him to be bashed over the head and let you escape with his pistol.”

  “Perhaps he was improvising,” she said. “I certainly was.”

  Naked improvisation. Maybe it would catch on. “With Dimitri?” he asked.

  She frowned a question, so he strode into the bathing chamber and retrieved the impromptu weapon.

  “Dimitri,” he said, lifting the defamed figurine high. Its penis had been broken clean off. “He was a fertility god.”

  “He was ugly.”

  “Aye, well now he’s castrated.”

  She shrugged with absolute unconcern. The blanket had slipped. An inch or so of golden shoulder peeked into view. Hoary raised his horny head. Desire tightened Cairn’s body like fear, and suddenly he found that he didn’t care if she were good or evil, if she were the widow she claimed to be or the thief he believed her to be. He wanted her regardless.

  He glanced at the statue. Is that how he would end up? Was that his fate? Castrated by a woman with no soul? Was she another Elizabeth? But no, Elizabeth had been groomed to deceive. Brought up by conniving nobility and taught to believe that everything belonged to her. Everything she desired. Everything she touched. Everything she saw.

  This Megs, despite her attitude, could not believe the same. And even if she did, he could take advantage of her charms and let her be. Send her on her merry way. There was no reason to believe she wouldn’t enjoy it as much as he. Women didn’t tend to shudder with distaste when he passed them on the thoroughfare. He was not presently without a mistress because of lack of interest on their part. Rather, he needed time to himself. Or at least he had. But circumstances had just changed. This was the lass he would take to his bed, and when they parted ways, there would be no royal parents to contend with. No threats of war, no political entanglements.

  Besides, she was Wheaton’s companion. How much more enjoyable she would be, knowing he would ruin her for him. Aye, it was clever to use her as bait. But why not enjoy her charms while he did so?

  He leaned a hip against his desk and watched her. “So your faith in Wheaton is already waning?” he asked.

  She said nothing.

  “Else there would be little reason for your attempt to escape.”

  “Tell me.” She watched him with no expression on her perfect features. “What makes you so deluded?”

  Deluded? Maybe he was, but he didn’t care at that precise moment. Maybe it was because he enjoyed the game, maybe it was her near nudity, or maybe it was the knowledge that, despite everything, she would be his. The decision had been made. “You still insist you don’t know him?” he asked.

  “Because I do not.”

  “Then why the bravado, Megs? If not because of assurance that he will save you? Are you not afraid? Are you not worried?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  He thought for a moment. “It might make me feel better.”

  “Then I am sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You don’t disappoint me,” he countered, and found that it was immensely true. Every move she made fascinated him. “I but wonder how you can be so certain of your escape from my dastardly clutches.”

  She shrugged. The blanket slipped another half an inch. “You seem loath to do bodily damage.”

  “There are fivescore of seamen who would argue with that.”

  “Your obsession with Wheaton is too consuming. You believe, against all sanity, I might add, that he will come for me. And until then you will keep me alive.”

  “Alive, yes,” he agreed. “But there is no guaranteeing your condition.”

  “So you would torture me?”

  He shrugged. Perhaps she had paled a mite, but her chin hadn’t dropped a whit. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because of Sir Albert.”

  He was surprised. Surprised at her answer, surprised at her attitude, surprised she even remembered his effeminate tutor’s name. “Albert.”

  “Yes,” she said, and, taking a few steps to the right, seated herself on a lavishly upholstered chair. She looked incredibly at home there, as if she weren’t a prisoner, as if she weren’t threatened, as if she were a sea princess, sitting comfortably on a coral reef as her clansmen gathered round to honor her. “You are
a barbarian.”

  “I’m not sure how that attribute will make me want to keep you safe and well, Megs.”

  “You are a barbarian,” she repeated. “But you are also the lord of Teleere.”

  He stared. She shrugged. “Thus your need to prove yourself.”

  “You think I won’t harm you because of my need to act…elite?”

  “Torturing a young foreign woman for unproven crimes might seem less than noble.”

  “But couldn’t I have you tortured in private?”

  Perhaps this was an idea she hadn’t considered, because she paused, then rose and finally spoke.

  “Someone would know.”

  “Someone?”

  “Burr. Peters. Sir Albert.”

  “Ahh.”

  “Thus I suggest a compromise,” she said and paced the room with mincing steps.

  “I’m listening,” he assured her, but mostly he was watching. Watching as the blanket slipped another inch. Watched her lips move and her tongue moisten her lips. He watched and waited and felt his senses vibrate at her nearness. The very air felt different when she was in the room.

  “You release me this very day,” she said, “and I will make sure there are no repercussions for your egregious actions.”

  “Egregious,” he said, and stepped toward her. She stepped back, toward the bed.

  “Yes.” She nodded, but she swallowed and tilted her chin up at the same time. “Let me go, and all will be well.”

  He took another few steps. She did the same, but in a moment she was up against the mattress, and he could not help but reach for her. She plopped down onto the bed, ready to scurry backward, but he was quicker and pinned her there, one arm on each side of her body with her legs bent beneath him. Their faces were inches apart. Their breath melded, and in that moment he could think of nothing but feeling her beneath him, of sweeping his hand up the curves of her body. Of possessing her.

  Her breath was coming hard. But so was his. He leaned in and kissed her lips.

  Lightning struck him, shaking him to the core, but in a moment he realized her hand was on his chest, splayed against the rapid beat of his heart.

  He drew away with a hard effort. Her eyes were wide and stunned, her plump lips parted and moist. He leaned in again, but she pressed him back.

  “Let me go, MacTavish,” she breathed.

  It took a moment before he could manage to shake his head, longer still before he could speak.

  “I can’t let you go, Megs,” he said. “But I can make love to you.”

  Chapter 9

  “M ake—” She couldn’t seem to quite force the words past her erotic lips.

  The blanket had slipped sideways, exposing half her left arm and the high portions of her chest. Cairn smiled. “I won’t hurt you, lass. In fact, if you quit your foolishness and—”

  “Foolishness! You call protecting my virtue…protecting my very life—”

  “Quit braining my lieutenant,” he explained, and because he could not help himself, he gently kissed the point of her shoulder.

  She jumped like a startled quail beneath the caress. Interesting.

  “Quit trying to escape,” he added, and kissed her collarbone. “Sleep with me.” The words came unbidden.

  “No,” she said. The single word was breathy, but whether it was from fear or desire, he could only guess.

  He glanced up. Her eyes were as wide and bottomless as tidal waves, her pupils all but swallowing the vibrant green of her irises. “No you won’t quit braining Peters or—”

  “I won’t sleep with you!” She was breathing hard. “Ever.”

  He eased his weight off her the slightest degree. She drew her feet onto the mattress, ready to escape, but it only served to displace the blanket, for he still held her captive. She was all but naked now, and that fact left him breathless, for she was stunning.

  Judging by the size of her breasts, one would assume she was stout, but she had virtually no belly. He swept his hand over the concave expanse and down. Her hips were as narrow as a sapling, her thighs lean and long.

  “But you would have slept with Peters,” he said, running his hand down her leg. She quivered in his wake. “And he has freckles.”

  “I did not say I would sleep with him.”

  “You implied it.”

  He scooped his hand behind her thigh, then around and down, so that he cradled her bottom in his hand. Nice. Nice nice bottom, Hoary said.

  “MacTavish!” Her voice sounded panicked, her eyes looked the same. “I lied to you.”

  He stopped his hand, held his breath. “You did?”

  She nodded and licked her lips. His hand remained immobile on the luscious curve of her buttocks. “I did not come here with only one companion.”

  What new lie was this? He commenced breathing and skimmed his fingertips along her bottom.

  She swallowed, breathing hard. “There were others. I was to…meet them.”

  He left the lovely curve of her buttocks with some regret, easing his palm over her thigh to her knee.

  “They…” She was breathing hard. “They had my possessions.”

  “Possessions?” He paused and found her gaze, but her body called again, and he turned his attention back to the compelling sweep of her satiny skin.

  “I am a wealthy woman, MacTavish. Let me go and when I find my—” His fingers bumped over her knee. It was sharp and cute and strangely enough, begged to be kissed. He moved down in that direction. “Friends.” Her voice was raspy. “When I find my friends I will reward you. Handsomely.”

  “I’d much rather have this,” he said, and kissed her thigh. Her stomach contracted. Her lips parted.

  “Quit!” She was breathing hard through her mouth. It did strange things to his gut. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “It is not right.”

  “It feels right.” Tugging the blanket gently, he fully bared her left breast. “It looks…phenomenal,” he said, and, easing up her body, kissed the outside curve of that one succulent breast.

  She bucked against him. “MacTavish! I—Cease! Let me go.”

  “You needn’t fear, lass.”

  “Let me go!” She sounded panicked. Where threats of decapitation and hangings had barely made her blink, the idea of sex seemed to send her teetering toward the edge of hysteria. Why? He narrowed his eyes in thought.

  “Did he hurt you, Megs? Is that why you’re afraid?”

  “No.”

  “Did he warn you not to lie with another man?” he asked, and brushed her nipple with his finger. She jumped again.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wheaton.” He was patient now, ultimately so, for his mind was elsewhere. Or perhaps nowhere at all. His body had taken over. “Did he threaten you?”

  “No. As I’ve told you before—”

  But he kissed her breast again, and her words stumbled to a halt, left hanging on a breathy note.

  “No threats,” he murmured, and skimmed the flat of his hand down her midline. Her eyes fell closed, and her body arched slightly. It was in that moment that the truth struck him like a mallet to the head. She might be afraid. She might be terrified. But she was also aroused. Wee Megs liked sex. Craved sex. So why was she fighting it. But when his hand reached her pubic hair she bucked like a storm-tossed schooner, nearly escaping. He drew her back by the barest of margins. But the blanket had abandoned her completely, doing nothing now but cradling her lovely rear. Her back was against the headboard, and her knees were bent, but it was her breasts that held his attention. They were capped by nipples that were dark and full and peaked like small, precious jewels. And they moved, up and down almost violently with the force of her breath.

  “Don’t do this, MacTavish!” Perhaps it was a plea, but it sounded more like a warning.

  “Why?” he asked and stroked her calf.

  Her eyes dropped closed again and her head fell back slightly, but she rallied in a moment, th
ough she didn’t manage to speak.

  “You’re not afraid of Wheaton.” He caressed her toes. She pulled them back against her buttocks with a shudder. He moved to the other ankle. “You’re unattached.” He trickled his fingers up the back of her leg. She swallowed hard. “And though I don’t pretend to know women well…” He smoothed his knuckles down the length of her thigh toward the destination he so desired. “Methinks you do not detest the idea of copulation.” He moved in for a kiss. “So—”

  “I’m a virgin!”

  He reared back, cocked his head, and stared at her. Seconds ticked away. He cleared his throat, then shook his head once and held it canted to the side. “I was in a battle some years back,” he said.

  She didn’t interrupt him, didn’t speak, just stared into his eyes like a cornered kitten. Hissing and ready to claw.

  “A powder keg exploded nearby and I think…” He scowled, trying to do just that. “I think I lost some hearing in my right ear because I thought I heard you say you were a—”

  “Virgin.”

  Her legs were tucked tight against her fancy bottom, and her arms were wrapped around them, but her gorgeous breasts swelled beside her knees, and it seemed that if he made the right move, she would unfurl like a summer rose beneath his hands

  “I am sorry, lass, but…” He drew a deep breath, trying to slow down, to consider. “I’m having a bit of trouble believing that Teleere’s most infamous thief is—”

  “I’m not Megs.”

  He nodded again. “Then you are—”

  “Linnet.”

  “The widow.”

  “Aye.” She licked her lips, shifted her gaze sideways, and turned solemnly back to him. Her eyes were tremendously large and ridiculously bright. “About that…” She cleared her throat.

  He waited, fascinated.

  “My husband—”

  “Wilbur.”

  “William. William and I never…” She stopped and shook her head.

  He raised his brows and waited some more.

  “We never…”

  He leaned closer as if that would help him hear the unspoken words.